spawning again?

[AmberC]

Will discus spawn again when they already have babies that are only about a week old? My pair is doing what I call the "spawn shake" they always do this little shake when they are getting ready to spawn again. If they do will they eat the babies that they aready have? Should the be removed? Thanks.

[Alight]

It could be that they are about to spawn, but is could also be the "these fry are itching me" shake that I've seen in my pairs, when the fry get to be a week or so old.

I'd watch for cleaning behavior before I'd get too worried.

BTW, you encouraged me to do something I've never done before with your leaf transfer bit.

I had a pair that ate their eggs in my breeding tank at the same time that a pair I had been trying to get to spawn previously and had given up on, decided to spawn on a rock in my community tank.

So, I pulled the rock with the eggs out, put it in the breeding tank, switched the pairs around, just to see if the new pair now in the breeding tank would continue to take care of the eggs. This pair had never successfully raised fry before. Well, the second day, they started to get aggressive towards each other and knocked a bunch of eggs off the rock, so I put a mirror against one of the tank, to distract them into thinking another discus was around. Well, that seemed to work. No more eggs lost, and they hatched the eggs, (small number because of what got lost from the fighting, and because of the poor fertilization rate because the water in the community tank is much harder than I normally use in the breeding tank) but they should be free swimming tomorrow. Maybe this will be the "learning" experience this pair needs to have a nice big batch next time around.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I'd never have tried this if you hadn't posted it.

Al Light

[AmberC]

Cool Al! Thats great news! I hope they start to get the hang of it then.

Mine DID spawn again. There are only two fry left from the original batch. Well that I can see right now. There were 4 earlier. The two I can see are eating of the male and hes gaurding a brand new batch of eggs. Dont know what all that is about.
Amber

[Alight]

I've had that happen before a couple of times. The old fry end up getting eaten eventually, unfortunately.

Al

[AmberC]

yeah. I'm sad to see them gone. The two are still left and hes still letting them eat off him but I dont think they'll last too long since all the others are gone. :(